


baby, you're a curveball

by exarite



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 12:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18828454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/pseuds/exarite
Summary: "Strike two!"Harry exhales and nods. Good. McLaggen, their catcher, throws the ball back at him and Harry catches it with ease.One last, he thinks. Make it or break it.::Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. Baseball.





	baby, you're a curveball

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Limonium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limonium/gifts).



> based on limonium's [pitcher harry](https://limonium-anemos.tumblr.com/post/184645321303/hey-newbie-pitcherharry-from-my-baseball-au) and [catcher tom](https://limonium-anemos.tumblr.com/post/184645184163/hey-captain-a-catchertom-from-a-baseball-au-i) art uwu
> 
> not beta read bcos im a ho

"Strike two!"

Harry exhales and nods. Good. McLaggen, their catcher, throws the ball back at him and Harry catches it with ease.

One last, he thinks. Make it or break it.

He looks around him, taking note. It's the last inning, the tension thick in the air. Harry's heart pounds in his chest, the Championship cup so near he can practically taste it. Gryffindor is ahead, 8 runs to 7, but there are runners on first, and third, all just waiting for their chance.

He palms the ball in his hand, wets his lips, and then brings his hands up to his chest. He takes a step back, raises his leg, and then pitches the ball.

The moment it leaves his hand, Harry  _ knows _ it's a perfect pitch. Everything feels right, his form great, the conditions wonderful. The ball flies, solid and true, and Harry's already grinning.

The batter makes to swing—misses!—and McLaggen reaches out to catch it, ending the game and then—

He fumbles. He drops the ball and Harry's gut drops with it.

"Run!" someone from Slytherin yells.

The dropped third strike, the exception to the three strike rule that would normally strike out the batter. The two outs mean the batter can run, and he immediately does. McLaggen quickly picks up the ball, throwing it to first, but—

Harry curses.  _ McLaggen had completely forgotten about the runner on third. _

Harry watches helplessly as the runner on third reaches home, tying Gryffindor and Slytherin 8-8, and McLaggen snarls in frustration, loud enough that Harry can hear it from the pitcher's mound.

It's the beginning of the end. McLaggen gets the ball back and throws it back to Harry, but dread hits him cold when he sees the next batter up the plate.

Tom Riddle.

Fuck. Riddle is one of the best players Slytherin has, his batting average at .320, the highest in the league. He has a good eye, and he can somehow  _ always _ tell a ball from a strike. But Harry is a professional—as much as one can be in Junior League, anyway—and he shoves his resignation down.

Riddle smirks at him and Harry scowls.

He holds his glove and the ball up his chest, inhales, and then lets it go.

He pitches, and he  _ knows _ this one is perfect too, but Riddle is even more perfect.

Riddle swings, and there's a loud  _ thwack  _ as his bat connects.

The ball flies over Harry's head.

Slytherin scores once more.

Slytherin wins the Championship.

*

After, Harry is alone in the field.

All the other Gryffindors are long gone, but the adrenaline from the Championship game is still thick in his veins. McLaggen had thrown a fit, but Harry privately thinks it's  _ his _ fault anyway for dropping the ball. He doesn't say it loud though, because that's mean.

They had lost, but there's always next year's Championships. Riddle was going to be playing the Senior League by then since he was already 13. Harry doesn't know why he's disappointed. He's the best player Harry has ever played against, and it just wouldn't be the same without him.

"Hey."

Harry looks up, and he frowns.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating?" he grumbles.

Tom tilts his head in acknowledgment. There's no smug smirk on his face, and his expression is blank.

"McLaggen screwed up," he says. Harry gives him another disapproving frown, and Riddle walks up in front of him, his hands shoved into his pockets. His white pants are stained with grass, but he looks perfect and put together still.

"I wouldn't have screwed up," Tom says, arrogant and sure. "I would have caught that pitch. It was perfect."

"Oh yeah?" Harry challenges.

"Let's go," Tom replies, meeting his challenge head-on. "Right here, right now. Pitch me your worst."

"You don't have any catcher's gear," Harry says weakly. It's not a no.

"Don't need it."

They stare at each other. The field lights are bright, and their shadows are long. There are some stragglers left outside the field itself, some Slytherins, some Gryffindors, some parents or friends that had come to support the players.

Tom and Harry have no one. Harry doesn't even know what time or how he's going back home.

"Fine," he relents, and Tom smirks. "If your pretty face gets hit, it's not my fault."

"You think my face is pretty?" Tom teases, and Harry feels his face go hot.

"Shut up!"

Tom laughs as he turns and walks to the home plate. He crouches down and holds his glove out in front of him. There's no helmet or cap to cover his face, and so Harry sees the expectantly raised eyebrow, and that damn smirk still on his lips.

Harry huffs. He takes his place at the pitcher's mound and brings his glove and the ball up to his chest.

He pitches. Tom catches it, easy as breathing, and then tosses it back. Harry thinks nothing of it and rears up to pitch another fastball, solid and perfect.

Tom catches it again.

Harry falters. He barely catches the ball as Tom throws it back to him, and he narrows his eyes. Tom meets his gaze, calm and waiting.

Harry pitches, not holding back this time, and it's the kind of pitch McLaggen  _ always  _ drops.

Tom catches it.

Harry stares.

"There's no batter," he says, flustered. "It's not the same."

Tom only raises his eyebrows.

They keep at it. A back and forth of pitch and catch, and it's somehow the easiest thing in the world. There's a light in Tom's eyes, and Harry finds himself grinning boyishly, returned in lower wattage by the beginnings of a smile on Tom. Harry takes the opportunity to test out a curveball, and for once, Tom does drop it, but he immediately shakes his head.

"Doesn't count. Again," he says as he throws it back. Then, conversationally, "You've never pitched a curveball before."

"Not in a game," Harry agrees. Alone though, he's been practicing. It didn't matter, anyway. He's 12. Everyone's been telling him he should wait till he's 14, at least, or until he's mastered the changeup, but James Potter's signature curveball is the stuff of legends. Harry wants to pitch like his dad.

He does it again, and it's so much different than practicing it by himself. Tom adjusts, and soon, he's catching Harry's almost curveballs, even if they'd be counted as balls and not strikes at this point.

There's no umpire to stop them, and so Harry keeps going.

He feels buoyant, Gryffindor's loss the farthest thing from his mind. There's a natural chemistry between him and Tom—as pitcher and catcher, he means, and nothing else—and Harry's ecstatic, grinning widely. He doesn't even need to say anything. Tom seems to read his intentions, catching Harry's pitches whether they're high, or low, or a just a little to the side. The solid smack of the ball against Tom's glove is heady, addictive, and  _ oh _ , Harry wishes he could pitch like this all the time.

Just as he's about to say something, a voice from the side of the field interrupts them.

"Tom!"

The almost-smile on Tom's face abruptly closes off. He looks like any other moody, petulant teenager now as he stands, his back to Harry.

"Yeah," he calls out, and he sounds annoyed. "I'm coming."

Harry peeks to the side to see a man, practically a carbon copy of Tom but much older. He's handsome too, but he's wearing a full suit, and there's a look on his face that makes Harry's skin crawl. He looks out of place in the baseball field, and he gives Tom's grass-stained pants a twist of his lips.

"Hurry," Tom's father snaps.

"Didn't even watch my game," Tom mutters.

Awkwardly, Harry trots after him. Tom tosses him his ball back without looking and then glances at him.

"See you around, Potter," he says.

But when? Harry thinks morosely. They weren't even playing in the same league anymore.

Tom opens his mouth to say something else, but—

"Tom!"

Tom turns, his attention wrenched away from Harry.

"Bye," Harry says softly, and Tom nods at him.

"Bye."

Harry watches Tom leave and sighs.

He's alone once more.

*

He doesn’t think much of that day. (That's a lie.)

He goes back to the Dursley's, and with baseball season done, he has nothing to do anymore. The only reason the Dursleys even let him play is that it's free, Gryffindor practically providing everything Harry needs to play.

He doesn't know what he's going to do once he ages out of the Junior Leagues. He's a good pitcher, but he doesn't think he's good enough to be sponsored for Seniors. He still wants to play.

He loves baseball. He practically breathes it. It's the only thing keeping him going, the picture of his father in his uniform on its special place in his mantle, a source of inspiration for Harry. His mother is beside him, smiling, but she looks exasperated, as if baseball was beyond her. Harry imagines her to be the same as Hermione in that way.

His last season for Juniors arrive, and with it, the unexpected arrival of his godfather, newly freed.

The combination of more practice time without his chores from the Dursley, and the sheer glee of living with Sirius, propels Harry onwards. He gets the curveball down, Ron replaces McLaggen as Gryffindor's catcher, and it's almost— _ almost _ as easy and natural as that night with Tom.

Gryffindor wins that season.

And then—

"How do you feel about playing for Hogwarts?"

He doesn't even need to think about it. His father had played for Hogwarts before going Minor then Major League.

" _ Yes _ ," he says.

*

Harry is alone in the field.

It's his first day of practice for the Hogwarts team, and there's that general thrum of nerves that comes with doing something new. Sirius had dropped him off, promising to pick him up after. Harry's still getting used to someone actually bringing him to and from practice.

"Hey."

Harry looks up, and his eyes widen.

"Tom?" He says in shock.

Tom eyes him, up and down, gaze assessing and sharp. He—he looks taller, his shoulders more filled out, his thighs defined beneath his uniform, and Harry feels his face go hot.

He's 13 now, and Tom 14. Harry had only discovered recently that…that boys were…pretty nice.

(Looking back, Tom was definitely his first crush when he was 12.)

"You're the new player, then," Tom says. He sounds pleased, and Harry gives him a tentative grin.

"Yeah," he says. "You catching?"

Tom holds out his hand, and Harry takes it. He can feel the callouses on Tom's palm. Not as abundant or as thick as Harry with his pitcher's hands, but his hand is warm, and Harry ducks his head, suddenly shy.

Crap, he thinks.

"I am," Tom confirms. He smirks. "I see a great season ahead of us."

He squeezes Harry's hand.

For once, Harry isn't alone.

**Author's Note:**

> something short and sweet bcos... baseball research made my head hurt 😂💙
> 
> i'm exarite on tumblr <3


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